Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserve increases to $31 billion

The nation’s stock of foreign exchange reserves has recorded an upward swing to $31 billion, after declining to a near $30 billion mark two months ago due to market interventions.

The development, which not only showed an understanding of the foreign exchange market dynamics by the apex bank, was also proof of the stable oil production and relative increase export earnings in the country, particularly from the non-oil sector of the economy.

In the last two months, the international price of crude oil has been unstable, oscillating between $45 per barrel to $51, but has been off-set by stable oil production put at 1.8 million barrels per day.

The reserve’s new profile is coming on the heels of significant gains in the last two weeks which were estimated at an average of $200 million, and has increased optimism over the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) capacity to sustain interventions in defense of the naira.

Meanwhile, CBN has extended the deadline for registration into the Bank Verification Number (BVN) project for Other Financial Institutions (OFIs) until December 31, 2017.

The apex bank had turned its focus to capturing the biometrics of customers of OFIs after completing the process in commercial banks, in continuation of efforts to unify banking system operations and ensure proper identification for all banked Nigerians.